United Nations food chief David Beasley spotted a tiny foot sticking out from under a blanket in a hospital in Yemen that has been overwhelmed with malnourished children, so he tried to bring a smile to the face of the small patient.

The United Nations and Syrian Arabic Red Crescent (SARC) kicked off a joint aid operation on Saturday, delivering vital humanitarian assistance to 50,000 suffering people in south-east Syria’s Rukban camp, near the Jordanian border, the UN said.

Rockets were fired late on Tuesday in the direction of the airport in Libya’s capital, residents said, forcing flights to be diverted, less than a week after the United Nations brokered a fragile truce between rival armed groups in Tripoli, Reuters reports.

Friday’s informal meeting on Syria, which involved a number of the United Nations Security Council member states, was aimed at creating “a virtual reality” concerning the situation in the Idlib province rather than at outlining practical steps to resolve the issue, Russia’s Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Vladimir Safronkov told TASS.

Findings of a US State Department investigation into Myanmar’s Rohingya crisis are “consistent” with those of a report by UN investigators released this week that called for Myanmar’s commander-in-chief and other generals be tried for genocide, the US ambassador to the United Nations said.

Amid the US pressures to limit the scope of Iran’s activities in Syria and its attempts to convince Russia to play a role in this regard, Moscow once again calls Iran’s presence in Syria lawful and legitimate.

In line with its recent efforts to save the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran despite the US withdrawal, the European Union has agreed to allocate an 18mn euro package for this purpose. Meanwhile, the United Nations has called American sanctions against Iran illegitimate.

China and Russia on July 19 delayed a US bid to the 15-member United Nations Security Council to halt refined petroleum exports to North Korea, asking for more detail on a US accusation that Pyongyang breached sanctions, Reuters reported.

NATO leaders on Wednesday called on all nations to maintain “decisive pressure” on North Korea, including by fully implementing United Nations sanctions, to persuade it to give up it nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.